Industrial zone pushing local economy to great heights

The West Coast New Economic Zone, a large industrial park currently taking shape in Qingdao, saw strong growth during the first half of this year.

The zone achieved a GDP of 108.2 billion yuan ($18 billion) during the first six months, a year-on-year increase of 12 percent.

Its fixed-asset investments totaled 55 billion yuan, up 9.7 percent from the same period of the previous year.

Gao Tianyi, deputy director of the administrative committee of the zone, said the zone is on a steady path to achieving three "historic missions" - building another port, constructing a new town within Qingdao and doubling the current economic volume of the city.

"Our confidence that we can fulfill these missions comes from the new zone's geographic advantages and advanced oceanic technology," Gao said.

With an area of more than 2,000 square kilometers, the zone is similar to Binhai New Area, Tianjin's large economic zone.

The zone includes a State-level economic and technological development zone, a bonded port area and an export-processing zone.

It also hosts the Sino-German Ecological Park and the China-Japan-ROK Innovation Industrial Demonstration Park.

Located across the sea from Japan and the Republic of Korea, Qingdao will benefit much from the potential development of a free trade area among the three countries.

The zone has given priority to the development of high-tech and marine industries.

At present, the zone hosts complete industrial chains for six different sectors - petrochemicals, home appliances, automotive, port logistics, shipbuilding and oceanic engineering.

The six industrial chains now form the backbone of the marine economy in the zone.

Meanwhile, a series of new massive projects have injected vitality into local economic growth.

Seven projects that each have an investment of more than 10 billion yuan are in the pipeline. The total investment will reach more than 90 billion yuan.

Three are under construction right now. Of them, one of the most notable is a cultural tourism city project of the Dalian Wanda Group, which has a total investment of 30 billion yuan. It is expected to be complete in 2015.

There are also about 100 projects with investments of more than 1 billion yuan each in the blueprint. Thirty-five of them are being built.

According to projections in the government's strategy, the GDP of the West Coast New Economic Zone will reach 500 billion yuan by 2015.

And by 2020, the GDP is projected to exceed 1 trillion yuan.